Why transcending?

So why ‘Transcending’? What does it mean and why is it my focus? How does this word pull so much together for me?

You could ask my yoga teacher from a long time ago how he knew it was my theme, my life focus. Somehow he knew, giving me my spiritual name, ‘Turiyamani’ or ‘transcendental jewel’.

I didn’t think much about it for many years but it was in the background all the time, I guess. A spiritual path, a sense of knowing I didn’t quite connect to.

But then, difficulty and tragedy, one thing after another, testing resilience, a time through which you change radically and nothing is the same again, a turning point that makes you question not only what’s important but everything you do.

Your world arcs into a different sphere entirely. You can remember the day, the hour, people’s faces, how time stood still, how green the leaves were, how all you could do was drink tea and stare into the air. How people said to you, ‘Your life will never be the same again’ and you fought that thought desperately, trying to keep things the same.

You would trade the world to go back to the state before then, but you cannot. It is immutable and your path.

And then later I came across Chris Guillebeau and his site, The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional strategies for life, work and travel

Chris writes about many things: travelling towards his goal of visiting every country in the world, entrepreneurship, personal development. The ‘convergence between highly personal goals and service to others’ is a key theme. He has constantly wonderful thought pieces, challenges to the way you think, work and live. In ‘A Brief Guide to World Domination – How to live a remarkable life in a conventional world’, Chris talks about personal goals, ordinary people pursuing big ideas and also through this, making a difference in the lives of others.

He asks you to consider ‘the two most important questions in the universe’. Here they are and here are my answers:

#1 What do you really want to get out of life?

My answer: transcendence, light out of dark, words lifted high, sweet words out of loss and longing, a way of rising above

#2 What can you offer the world that no-one else can?

My answer: words of loss and longing, receptacles for managing them, a model for resilience and transcendence, structures for managing feelings, lyrical words

Those answers have led me here after a long time of reflecting on them. I am sure I am not the only one who feels these emotions but I am the only one who can connect them in this unique way, offer them shaped and formed just so. So here I am, transcending and working through what this means. I hope that it means something to others at it unfolds.